Topics - Fenric

Visual Studio.Net combines classes and other files into language-specific projects, while projects can be aggregated into mixed-language solutions that encompass the whole of an application.

Projects can reference other .Net projects, and even installed .NET assembies, and COM objects. Project files list these references, along with system namespaces, version numbers, description, author & copyright info, etc.

Solution files include lists of project files, source control information, and miscellaneous files.

This request is, could EA be made to parse, generate, and update .NET project and solution files? Being able to reverse engineer projects in the proper order would seem to be a key feature. Likewise, being able to have EA generate the stub code for a solution and have Visual Studio be able to load that solution with one click would be a great boon as well.

What are the chances of EA being able to model ASP.NET web projects & solutions?

ASP.NET projects are based around three HTML-like filetypes - web forms(.aspx), user controls (.ascx), and web service files (.asmx). Each object that is represented by one of these filetypes inherits from a separate "codebehind" class (VB.Net, C#, etc.) file. Both web forms and user control files can aggregate system controls (text boxes, buttons, datagrids, etc) as well as other user controls.

By default, each of the codebehind files likewise inherits from a system object - System.Web.UI.Page, System.Web.UI.UserControl and System.Web.Services.WebService respectively. (The direct inheritance is by default only - there can be intermediate classes inserted into the inheritance chain if needed.)

A container's codebehind file might have reference to a contained user control, but more often than not the only reference to a contained user control may occur in the container's .as?x file.

Two additional files include global.asax and web.config files. The config file speaks for itself, whereas global.asax mainly consists of a "global" class that provides methods that fire on application start/end/error, session start/end, request begin/authenticate, etc. These files are unique in that there are only one each of these files per web application.

In some of my reverse engineered diagrams, I see that EA takes my VB.NET methods that are marked with "Friend" visibility and designates them as "Protected." Since these Friend methods are exposed only inside their owning classes' assemblies, shouldn't EA designate their visibility as "Package?"